One of the more relaxing and peaceful sounds I have heard in autumn and winter is the sound of dry leaves blowing across the terrain. As it turns out, recording the sound of leaves blowing over the ground in the wind is not easy. Using a microphone and a wind guard does not stop the distortion that a sensitive condensing microphone invariably experiences while recording in wind. So, we head to the Foley audio effects lab. In the first sample I am picking up dried leaves and placing them on a slant board to get the initial sound effect.
I recorded 3 or 4 different samples to get a good mixture of leave sounds. Next I mix all the samples down. You might notice a change in ambient noise as I moved from outdoors to indoors. This will have no effect on the final product.
That was my first mixdown. There were 4 subsequent mixdowns. Finally, I catalog it and put it in my sound library. As a example I add a windy environment, distant wind chimes and a far-off owl for a blustery autumn day in this stereo sample:
This 105 second sample took about two or three hours to accomplish... the owl was from my backyard, the chimes from my folk's front porch, the wind from a storm that blew in a few days ago and the leaves from our Foley effect lab.
